To N. A. Leikin, 7 October 1884. Moscow.

Written from Moscow on Sunday, 7 October 1884, this letter to editor Nikolai Leikin is classic shop talk from the freshly graduated physician-turned-humorist: a self-mocking apology for the lateness and quality of his submissions ("literary excrements"), suspicion that his brother Nikolai has been careless about posting some drawings, and a half-joking plan for handling the weekly Moscow feuilleton around whatever else comes up. Chekhov deflects Leikin’s comparison of their work rates with an extended, comically self-deprecating list of his own disadvantages – no experience, no private room to write in, "agitated by passions" – against Leikin’s established position and salary.

The letter closes with a string of small dispatches typical of these years: a note on medical prospects, a comic vignette of the poet Liodor Palmin caught disheveled and half-dressed at home, a wry aside about an overture from the journal "Nov" that its reported capital of 500,000 rubles left him too intimidated to answer, and a closing postscript about a new coat from the tailor.